Friday, May 28, 2010

While there are plenty of admirable Star Wars artists in the community nowadays, there's an artist I need to mention who travels in slightly different circles. This Jedi Master is Sean "Cheeks" Galloway.

I've been a fan of Cheeks' work for a few years now. He was one of the first artists I DevWatched over on DeviantArt. Then I came to find out that he was actually the lead character designer on a great Animated Series you may have heard of -- Spectacular Spider-Man! That piqued my interest in following his escapades in the art world.Then, the unthinkable happened. I found out he would be teaching classes on Schoolism.com, an online art school that allows you to learn from the comfort of your own home! The very notion of being able to learn from this art guru made me giddy with joy. I took his Portfolio class (which was a cool 1k, but worth every penny). The way it works is that they give you a lesson, and you submit a digital copy of the assignment. A few days later, BOOM, you got a 30-90 minute video critique of Cheeks drawing over your work, giving you super helpful feedback.

Let me tell you...this was one of the GREATEST experiences of my life. Not only was his insight AMAZINGLY helpful towards perfecting my characters and style, but the fact that he was so flippin' nice made the experience all the more engaging. He was extremely approachable, and quite possibly one of the nicest human beings I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with.

"But, what does this have to do with Star Wars" you ask?

WELL! Cheeks was awesome enough to allow me to incorporate a Star Wars story of my own into each of the 9 assignments!ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE DREAM.Here are some of the results:

And MOST IMPORTANTLY, please go check out Sean's work, as I can never repay him for the patience, kindness, and guidance he's shown me as an instructor. I wish him the best in his quickly ascending career!

Friday, May 21, 2010

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've written here, "but I assure you...My resolve has nevah been strongah!"

I've been hard at work over the past few months taking online art classes at Schoolism.com, which I'll talk about in the next post! First, I wanted to talk about a really great exchange I was lucky to have with Miss Katie Cook.As some of you know, she's a pretty big up and coming Star Wars artist. She's done official sketch cards as well as illustrations for the Official Star Wars website!

She was kind enough to offer me some tips on getting started:

1. conventions convention conventions. take your portfolio to comic con and shop it around. both lucasfilm and dark horse have portfolio reviews there. or, get a table at a larger con and set up. editors aome around looking for new talent all the time!

2. web site. you have a deviant art. good. update it all the time. editors scour the internet looking for new people all the time. post your art in some of the fan forums as well. most of them have a fan art section, editors WATCH THESE FORUMS AND READ THEM. they'll see it. if they want to hire you, they'll come to you.

3. don't get discouraged if you haven't heard anything after a couple months. there are hundreds of artists vying for a spot on the "star wars artist" roster.... so they've got a lot to get through before they see your work and say "oh! we've got to use this person on THIS project!".

There you have it! Straight from one of the people I hope will one day consider me a colleague.

Thanks again to her for taking the time to offer some advice! You can see her great work here: